


left to listen

by rikacain



Category: Portal (Video Game), Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, M/M, Portal crossover don't blame me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 07:49:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rikacain/pseuds/rikacain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cores are not allowed in the kitchens. Humans are not allowed in the kitchens. In the case that you may see a slice of cake in the kitchen, you are reminded that cake technically do not exist if you are below Core Clearance Level 10.</p>
            </blockquote>





	left to listen

**Author's Note:**

> ok fuck me I did it
> 
> See picture at: http://rikacain.tumblr.com/post/64877683610/theragnarokd-kurzz-happy-belated-birthday

"The humans are sleeping in their Relaxation Vaults. The cores are sleeping in their hibernation mode. GLaDoS never sleeps. Welcome to Aperture Science."

The music plays in the laboratory, the abandoned laboratory where so many people used to work and now no one is left to listen to the rare broadcast of the Community Enrichment Core (In-Laboratory). Or as it likes to call itself, CECil. Or Cecil. The scientist who made him was named Cecil, and CECil rather liked the one majuscule letter compared to the three.

Then again, it did change its mind every other time it woke up or so. For now, it is Cecil.

"GLaDos has asked me through a series of complicated questions simplified down to a survey that only had two answers to be given - yes, and no in binary code - to notify everyone that kitchens are out of bounds. Cores are not allowed in the kitchens. Humans are not allowed in the kitchens. In the case that you may see a slice of cake in the kitchen, you are reminded that cake technically do not exist if you are below Core Clearance Level 10. Core Clearance Level 10 is a privilege only offered to GLaDoS."

Cecil swings up onto another rail, into another laboratory where the incapacitated cores were once worked on. The white coat is still there on the chair, its faded nametag reading ‘Hi, my name is CARLOS’. The core regarded piece of cloth with what it would call fondness, even if its owner had long departed.

"Listeners, Core JoSie has sent a flickering of lights to me the other day. Core JoSie is one of our very first personality cores, and is many years our supposed senior - that is, if age counts when cores are immortal unless incinerated. Anyway, core JoSie insists that she saw a human running into an abandoned test chamber where no one ever goes into because all humans are asleep. I told Core JoSie that it is impossible for humans to be in a test chamber unless they are put in one by GLaDoS herself. Core JoSie insisted that she saw one, and soon after decided to go on a thrillingly dangerous activity, thrusting herself across the incinerator and hoping that she would land, literally, on the other side. I have not seen her since, and hope with all my core properties that she is well."

Cecil doesn’t know if Carlos had survived. He’s not the Fact Core, who is annoyingly relentless in pursuing what it called facts and insisting that ‘My name is Steve. Fact.’ so he doesn’t exactly have the urge to find out whether the scientist was alive. But probably not. It seemed like a long time since GLaDos had flooded the centre with the deadly neurotoxin.

"An advertisement from Aperture Science. Tired of living? Hate being homeless? Come sign up to be a test subject today! Remember, no loitering is allowed, and do. Not. Touch. The. Glass."

But Carlos, perfect, beautiful Carlos as Cecil the scientist had sighed to Cecil the personality core, might have been pulled into the mandatory employee testing programme and installed into a Relaxation Vault before anything else. There is still a chance.

Cecil? Definitely dead. GLaDoS had made sure of that. Anyone who worked on the cores had to go.

"Remember, listeners. If you are ever approached by Black Mesa or any of its employee, please press the emergency ‘Black Mesa’ button. It will be located under the potted and dead plants, and will be a disgusting tar colour. It is recommended that you wear gloves before pressing the button, and if any liquids are spilt onto your gloves then you are to wipe the gloves on the Black Mesa personnel and hope that the acid will eat through their clothes. We all hate Black Mesa."

Cecil feels itself slowing down into hibernate mode yet again - GLaDoS doesn’t like personality cores running around the enrichment center and wasting energy she is perfectly capable of generating. It plays a song, something that Cecil and Carlos the scientists had danced to once upon a human lifetime, and slowly drags itself back to its hibernation spot. You never know what can happen when you sleep out in the open.

"I hope that Carlos is well. I hope that no one approaches the kitchen. I hope for a lot of things, for it is human to. But I am not human - yet I hope." Its - no, his. His eye blink once, twice. "Good night, Aperture Science. Good night."

[ _Test subject no. 32: Carlos [RETRACTED] in stasis. Will be awakened for testing in 47 years.]_


End file.
